


Nightmares

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Triggers [5]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Head Injury, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, tw: mentions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Maddie looks from her boyfriend to her husband, shaking her head as she sobs, “Let him go and you can have me. Let him go and I’ll never try to leave again. I promise.” She’s begging him, but the knife plunges further into Chimney and his eyes are starting to close. He’s dying, he’s dying and it’s all her fault.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Triggers [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765093
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23
Collections: Madney One-Shots





	Nightmares

_Maddie looks from her boyfriend to her husband, shaking her head as she sobs, “Let him go and you can have me. Let him go and I’ll never try to leave again. I promise.” She’s begging him, but the knife plunges further into Chimney and his eyes are starting to close. He’s dying, he’s dying and it’s all her fault._

“Maddie, Maddie! Wake up! Hey…” There’s hands on her shoulders, gently shaking her, his voice sounds distant, until her eyes are open and she can see his concerned, slightly terrified face above her. She pushes him away from her as she sits up and looks around, her heart thumping, her hair soaked from sweat as she struggles to find her breath.

It had been a while since her last nightmare, so long that she can’t understand what has suddenly brought it all back to her. She can see Doug’s face so clearly, she feels as though he’s in the room with her and then her hand flies to her still flat stomach, the need to protect this unborn child at all costs from him, from everyone suddenly overtaking everything else she feels in that moment. The impending panic attack is rising, causing an uncomfortable pain in her chest as she scrambles from the bed.

She knows he’s dead. She knows he can’t get to her anymore. She knows that deep down but somehow, he still lingers on. His smirking face is still there, the look of pleasure in his eyes when she cries, the constant reminder that she needs to be perfect.

“Maddie,” His voice is wary, but he follows her from the bed, forcing her to press her back up against the nearest wall. Each breath is more of a struggle, it feels as though there’s a weight crushing her chest, or the time Doug wrapped his hands around her throat and pressed down until she was so sure that was how she was going to die. The memories are hitting her all at the same time, and she hates herself because she was happy. She was so damn happy and Doug couldn’t even give her a week to enjoy the initial bliss she felt when she found out she was having a baby.

“Maddie, I need you to listen to my voice, okay?” He always manages to appear calm in the most stressful of situations, she knows him better than that though. She can see the pained look in his eyes, knowing she was the one causing him pain. He reaches for her and she has nowhere to go, her back is already pressed up against the wall and she can’t let him touch her. She’s completely unworthy of his affection right then. It’s not logical, it’s not right but she can’t breathe and he’s still coming towards her.

Until she pushes him back as hard as she can muster, “Don’t touch me!”

The room falls silent when he stumbles back, tripping over her slippers that she had stupidly left discarded on the floor (Chimney had told her to put them next to her side of the bed a thousand times over, Doug would have made her pay by now), his head hitting the bedside cabinet with a crack. A sickening crack that seems to echo in her mind over and over again until she sobs. The blood is pounding in her ears as her hands shake, the familiar taste of bile rising in her throat as she shakes her head. He’s not moving.

He had compared her to Doug once, in the middle of an argument, he had apologised a hundred times since and told her the words had come out wrong. Sometimes, she still thought of that moment, how she felt but suddenly, for the first time, since those words had left his lips months prior, she felt as though they were true. She was just like him, she had hurt someone she loved. Maddie had thought the cycle had ended when Doug took his final breath, but all she could think right then was how she had unwittingly carried it on. First, stalking Tara and now, hurting Chimney.

She does the only thing she knows to do right then, locating her phone and dialling 911 with trembling fingers, keeping it straight to the point in an attempt to stop the tears from falling. She’s relieved when she doesn’t recognise the voice on the other end, when she doesn’t have to explain herself too much. She hangs up, her fingers moving to his neck to make sure he’s still breathing. He is, but he’s not awake and there’s so much blood, soaking into the carpet.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

She can barely remember when she stopped apologising and when she let the paramedics into their apartment. For a brief moment, his eyes opened in the ambulance and his hand reached for hers, and she can remember pulling her hand away as though he had burnt her. She can remember being asked by a kind paramedic if it was self-defence, if she was hurt, if she needed help. But she can’t remember if she answered.

It’s a haze, she knows she must have given someone her brother’s phone number at some point because suddenly he’s there, asking her what happened, if she’s okay and if Chimney is okay and all she can do is stare at the floor with her head in her hands. It’s the guilt that hits her first, the overwhelming, crushing guilt that forces the tears to spill from her eyes and hits her brother’s hands that are clenched around her knees, kneeling in front of her. He’s been trying to get her attention to no avail, nothing beyond, “I did this.” Along with panicked mumbles of, “Doug.” Falls from her lips and she’s not looking to see the terrified look on her brother’s face.

It’s Hen who leads her into the hospital room, hours have passed, and she can sort of recollect a doctor approaching them and telling them that he was going to be fine. A severe concussion and eleven stitches later, he’s going to be _fine_ eventually. But then she supposes, the first time Doug hit her, she thought everything would be fine afterwards too. Did he feel guilty when he had punched her for that first time? Did he hate himself too?

Terrified eyes glance over at the sleeping man who somehow looks so tiny, so vulnerable in the hospital bed. _You did this_ she keeps telling herself over and over again until Hen wraps an arm around her waist and gently guides her down into the seat next to his bed. “I-I shouldn’t be here,” She finally says, seeing the surprise on his best friends face as it’s the most Maddie has spoken since anyone arrived, “I did this to him. He’s going to hate me.”

There’s a helpless look on her face when she dares herself to look at Hen directly, for the first time, expecting to see hatred and disgust but instead, seeing confusion. There’s a hand in hers and she can feel her chest start to tighten again, the impending sense of doom that Chimney opened his eyes and asked her to leave crosses her mind, only causing her to cry even harder. “I’ve spoken to him, Maddie, he said it was an accident.”

“N-no, I-I p-pushed… I pushed…” The words are a struggle to get out, hyperventilating in the way Hen immediately recognises, “Pushed him…”

“Did you want him to fall back and crack his head open?” The question is matter of fact, blunt but sympathetic in the way only Hen can muster. Her hand moves to rub gentle circles on Maddie’s back, patiently waiting for an answer that she already knows.

“N-no, but…”

“There’s no but, Maddie. Did you want to hurt him?”

She shakes her head, “Then that’s all that matters, right? He was asking for you, whatever is going through your head right now, it’s just that… in your head.” She finds herself leaning into Hen’s gentle touch as she closes her eyes, the tightness in her chest eases ever so slightly, replaced instead by a gentle ache when she looks over at her boyfriend. “H-Hen?”

The other woman glances at her, “Do you think I’m too messed up to be a good mom?”

Hen can’t disguise the shock on her face, or the hurt in her eyes as they water, and she bites her lip to stop them from falling, “You’re not messed up, Maddie. You spent a very long time in a traumatic situation, no one is expecting that to just disappear because he’s gone or because you’re happy. You’ll be an amazing mom,” The tears fall despite her best efforts, “Chim will make a wonderful dad—together? The two of you have more love to give than anyone else I know. But if you’re telling me what I think you’re telling me…” Her voice is soft as she grasps at Maddie’s hands, “I don’t know two people more deserving of the joy and love a child brings.”

With watery smiles, the two look at each other, until she hears a groan of her name from the bed, “Mads?” Which causes her to jump up, sending an apologetic glance to Hen who just laughs, taking the moment to slip from the room when Maddie carefully slips herself onto the bed next to Chimney, “I’m sorry,” She whispers, as her lips press against his cheek, a hand over his chest.

“It’s ‘kay. Tripped.”

“Over my slippers.” She flinches, that hatred for herself bubbling up inside of her once more, threatening to spill over, even when she thinks she’s all cried out.

“Told you so.” His lips are upturned into the tiniest trace of a smirk, and despite the thoughts running through her head, she finds herself letting out a small chuckle, “Y-you did, you did tell me and I’ll listen next time, I promise. I’m so sorry.”

He opens one eye to look at her, his vision still blurred, hushing her, “I know you didn’t like the carpet, but this was a bit extreme.” It’s a poor excuse at a joke, but she laughs anyway and snuggles into his side, “I know a good trick to get the stains out, don’t worry.”

“We’ll talk about why you know that later, just… stay with me now, okay? I need you.”

The exhaustion in his voice is evident, his eyes fully closed once more as she gently presses a kiss to his neck and closes her eyes, feeling completely spent, taking comfort only in the gentle pulsating of his chest as she keeps her hand pressed against his skin. 


End file.
